It is a far cry from these to the liberality that inspired the new impressionism of "Woodland Sketches" (op. 51) and "Sea Pieces" (op. 55), in which he gives a legitimate musical presentation of a faintly perfumed "Wild Rose" or "Water Lily," but goes farther, and paints, with wonderful tone, the moods inspired by reverie upon the uncouth dignity and stoic savagery of "An Indian Lodge," the lonely New England twilight of "A Deserted Farm," and all the changing humors of the sea, majesty of sunset or star-rise, and even the lucent emerald of an iceberg. His "From Uncle Remus" is not so successful; indeed, MacDowell is not sympathetic with negro music, and thinks that if we are to found a national school on some local manner, we should find the Indian more congenial than the lazy, sensual slave.
He has carried this belief into action, not only by his scientific interest in the collection and compilation of the folk-music of our prairies, but by his artistic use of actual Indian themes in one of his most important works, his "Indian Suite" for full orchestra, a work that has been often performed, and always with the effect of a new and profound sensation, particularly in the case of the deeply impressive dirge.
A proof of the success of MacDowell as a writer in the large forms is the fact that practically all of his orchestral works are published in Germany and here, not only in full score, but in arrangement for four hands. They include "Hamlet;" "Ophelia" (op. 22); "Launcelot and Elaine" (op. 26), with its strangely mellow and varied use of horns for Launcelot, and the entrusting of the plaintive fate of "the lily maid of Astolat" to the string and wood-wind choirs; "The Saracens" and "The Lovely Alda" (op. 30), two fragments from the Song of Roland; and the Suite (op. 42), which has been played at least eight times in Germany and eleven times here.
The first movement of this last is called "In a Haunted Forest." You are reminded of Siegfried by the very name of the thing, and the music enforces the remembrance somewhat, though very slightly.
Everything reminds one of Wagner nowadays,—even his predecessors. Rudyard Kipling has by his individuality so copyrighted one of the oldest verse-forms, the ballad, that even "Chevy Chace" looks like an advance plagiarism. So it is with Wagner. Almost all later music, and much of the earlier, sounds Wagnerian. But MacDowell has been reminded of Bayreuth very infrequently in this work. The opening movement begins with a sotto voce syncopation that is very presentative of the curious audible silence of a forest. The wilder moments are superbly instrumented.
The second movement, "Summer Idyl," is delicious, particularly in the chances it gives the flautist. There is a fragmentary cantilena which would make the fortune of a comic opera. The third number, "In October," is particularly welcome in our music, which is strangely and sadly lacking in humor. There is fascinating wit throughout this harvest revel. "The Shepherdess' Song" is the fourth movement. It is not précieuse, and it is not banal; but its simplicity of pathos is a whit too simple. The final number, "Forest Spirits," is a brilliant climax. The Suite as a whole is an important work. It has detail of the most charming art. Best of all, it is staunchly individual. It is MacDowellian.
While the modern piano sonata is to me anathema as a rule, there are none of MacDowell's works that I like better than his writings in this form. They are to me far the best since Beethoven, not excepting even Chopin's (pace his greatest prophet, Huneker). They seem to me to be of such stuff as Beethoven would have woven had he known in fact the modern piano he saw in fancy.
The "Sonata Tragica" (op. 45) begins in G minor, with a bigly passionate, slow introduction (metronomed in the composer's copy,
-50). The first subject is marked in the same copy, though not in the printed book,